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There's a fundamentalist ministry operating at the Air Force Academy called Cadets For Christ. This ministry is part of the "shepherding" movement, using cult-like tactics by which the cadets recruited by ministry leaders Don and Anna Warrick are separated from their families and anything else that might interfere with their brainwashing. In the shepherding movement, the female is the "sheep" and the male is the "shepherd," and a woman's sole purpose in life is to be a good wife and mother, subordinating herself to her male shepherd.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has been contacted by a number of parents of Academy cadets who have fallen prey to the Warricks' ministry, and one of these families has been brave enough to go public with their story.

Empowered by Republican gains and the recent selection of Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) to Chair the Subcommittee on Health, Indiana Congressman Mike Pence is again speaking about ending what he calls “taxpayer funding of abortion.” Pence is the sponsor of the “Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act,” which would cut-off federal finances to health services groups such as Planned Parenthood. However, the title of Pence’s bill is deceiving, as under current law “Title X funds may not be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.” As a result, there is no taxpayer funding of abortion either under Title X or the new health care reform law, another baseless charge frequently used by the right wing activists.

Under Pence’s bill, the government will stop giving taxpayer dollars to organizations which perform abortions or contribute to groups which perform abortions, even though abortion coverage is already banned from using federal dollars. As The Nationpoints out, Planned Parenthood is one of the largest and most well-known groups working in the extensive field of reproductive and sexual healthcare, and would incur most of the damage from this bill: “The aim is to defund Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest network of clinics for family planning and women’s health, and in many regions the only provider within reach.”

Now Pence, the winner of the Values Voter Summit 2010 presidential straw poll, believes that cutting funds to reproductive healthcare organizations is not just necessary to constrain a woman’s access to healthcare but also to address unemployment.

Now the President needs to sign it and implement it ASAP. Since it’s such a historic day, let’s laugh together at Bryan Fischer of the hate group American Family Association, whose response is SUPER crybaby. First the headline:

Benedict Arnold Republicans destroy military and our national security

Oh god, so funny, can’t type, laughing too hard. Here’s what he says:

We are now stuck with sexual deviants serving openly in the U.S. military because of turncoat Republican senators.

With growing speculation over his presidential ambitions, Indiana Republican Mike Pence is taking the anti-Obama rhetoric into high-gear. Pence is the winner of the Family Research Council’s 2010 Values Voter Summit straw poll, and is seen as a favorite of the Religious Right. By stepping down from his position as House GOP Conference Chair because he couldn’t commit to serving a full term, Pence signaled that he could potentially run for governor of Indiana or President. In an interview with US News & World Report, Pence rejects the social issues “truce” proposed by Indiana’s governor, defends the prominent role of social conservatives in the Republican Party, and maintains that Obama wants Americans “simply to obey” like a dog.

Last week [Right Wing Watch] noted that Rep. Michele Bachmann intends to have David Barton as one of the instructors for the weekly class on the Constitution that she is organizing for members of Congress.

the influence of Christian conservatives remains substantial and that they are rallying around the idea of "American exceptionalism" to press their political agenda and have lots of Republican presidential hopefuls to choose from.

Of all possible sources, the mainstream media often produces the most belated of coverage on the Religious Right. When Newsweek writes about American exceptionalism, you can bet that others have been writing about it for months if not years earlier and probably more carefully.

Consider the coverage of the term "American exceptionalism." It's been identified with the Religious Right recently in the mainstream media. But, the media doesn't always explore well the fact that the Religious Right's version of American exceptionalism is not necessarily one informed about what the term "American exceptionalism" itself has meant throughout the nation's history. It's not a brand new concept. But, it's meaning changes--it's slipperly. This is an important part of the untold story, because it reveals how the Religious Right is claiming the notion of American exceptionalism as its own by stressing the theological characteristics of American exceptionalism, which does not necessarily mean excluding the non-theological characteristics, of course.

The original concept of American exceptionalism as understood in the early 1800's didn't imply national superiority in all things. It implied so many other interesting concepts--especially interesting when one considers that many European liberals embraced the reality of American exceptionalism, too--that one would think that would be sufficient enough to offer discussions, inspirations, or even mottos aplenty; but, no--not for today's Religious Right.

For the Religious Right, American exceptionalism is more likely to imply or even definitionally embrace the notion of America as somehow divinely best--not just a new thing in history but something with a divine role in history--that America serves in the political history of the world a role more or less like the role of Jesus in the Religious Right's theological understanding of the world: transformatively perfect, the best, the most powerful, the most humble, and essentially--that is almost in the Platonic sense of essence--aspecial nation with a special role and made real through God's will, (i.e., made actual, i.e., brought into "the course of human events"); and, therefore, to the extent that anything seemingly imperfect occurs within the American narrative, that something is also actually special, because it's happening within a nation specially blessed. It's as if America is under a unique heavenly dispensation. In less academic parlance: the US's shit either doesn't really stink or stinks with a Purpose, in the same way that for a Christian even bad things have a special divine purpose.

What is more, the Religious Right is keen to believe this wholeheartedly and see the understanding itself as special. American exceptionalism means special significance exists relative to anything American--including current events and certainly history--even if it's special significance best understood by or perhaps visible only to those who have the eyes to see it....even if it's superiority veiled in ostensible national imperfection. In other words, the Religious Right's understanding of American excetionalism is really about the Religious Right's own sense of exceptionalism--one, it might be added, that--like many theological assertions--is not falsifiable. They've got America, themselves, you, me, the purpose of history, and the rest of the world completely figured out; or, perhaps, for the proportionally humble among them, at least exceptionally figured out: figued out in a way that's figured out enough--more enougher than the way you've got it figured, anyway! There is no not-knowing--at least no not-knowing that's significant. There's only knowing about important truths in ways or to extents sufficiently superior to everyone else.

controversy broke out following news that Anderson and his Word of Faith Baptist Church had made the Southern Poverty Law Center's recent list of antigay hate groups. In a radio interview Anderson agreed that he hates gay people, thinks they should be executed, and that vigilante machine gunning might be ok

Responding to a question about uniting gay partners during the immigration process, [Family Research Council (FRC) head Peter] Sprigg said, "I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them."

Last February, Sprigg appeared on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and said, "I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions on homosexual behavior."

"So we should outlaw gay behavior?" Matthews asked.

"Yes," Sprigg replied.

The American Family Association's Bryan Fischer claimed in a May 27 blog post that "homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and 6 million dead Jews."

The Traditional Values Coalition, which was already an SPLC hate group, has a page on its website headlined "Homosexual Urban Legends," which ridiculously asserts without evidence that, "[t]he cold, hard fact is that teens who are struggling with homosexual feelings are more likely to be sexually molested by a homosexual school counselor or teacher than to commit suicide over their feelings of despair.".....In its report, SPLC analyzed hate crime statistics based on FBI figures. The SPLC compared the rate of victimization for gay people to that of the other groups. The figures show that homosexuals are 2.4 times more likely to suffer a violent hate crime attack than Jews. In the same way, gays are 2.6 times more likely to be attacked than blacks; 4.4 times more likely than Muslims; 13.8 times more likely than Latinos; and 41.5 times more likely than whites. The bottom line, according to SPLC is that, "Homosexuals are far more likely than any other minority group in the United States to be victimized by violent hate crime."